Announcing the financial results for the nine-month period ended September 30, 2023, Acwa Power said its operating income surged by 12.4% to SAR2.1 billion ($559 million) mainly driven by higher income both from new operations coming online and existing ones.

 

During the quarter, the company’s general and administrative expenses and project development cost provisions posted an increase mainly because of increased business development activity. 

 

Higher operating income was the main driver, which was partially offset by the adverse impact of higher net financial charges due to higher market interest rates, as well as the company’s additional sukuk issuance in February this year. 

 

For the three-month period ended September 30, 2023, Acwa Power said its operating income - before impairment, loss and other expenses - grew 25% to hit SAR814 million ($217 million). 

 

Commenting on the results, Chief Financial Officer Abdulhameed Al Muhaidib said: "We’re steadily progressing in achieving our 2023 targets with solid growth in projects achieving financial closes and others being commissioned and delivering energy and water to the end users."

 

"With the collaboration of our various business units, we hit our billion riyal bottom line in nine months, which is a fantastic achievement given the macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges surrounding us," he stated.

 

The positive momentum in the company’s business development activities accelerated in the three months ended September 30, 2023. 

 

Among its key highlights for the nine-month period, the Saudi utility giant said it had brought three solar PV projects and one desalination project in Saudi Arabia to their financial closes at an aggregate total investment cost of SAR11.1 billion ($3 billon). 

 

Two of these are part of the pipeline of projects in Saudi Arabia’s renewable energy development programme, 70% of which has been assigned to Acwa Power to develop along with the PIF. 

 

"This expedited activity in business development is an unmistakable sign of our investment ahead of the curve to support our accelerated growth into 2030," stated its CEO Marco Arcelli  in his regular quarterly address to the shareholders. 

 

"The prolonged and increased ripples of the high interest rate, high inflation and geopolitical conflicts environment of the past couple of years, now expected to continue well into 2024, compel us to maintain an element of caution in our expectations into the immediate and near future," he noted. 

 

"Although our business model largely allows us to rebalance these vibrations in the long run, timing differences in the short term are always possible due to delays in achieving some financial milestones as well as in executing identified financial optimisation transactions that are part of our return model," he added.-TradeArabia News Service